ORC Seminar: Queues with Cues: How Visual Congestion Drives Join-or-Balk Decisions

Gad Allon Professor University of Pennsylvania Abstract: Customers often cannot directly observe congestion in physical queues and instead rely on visual cues such as line length, movement, and who is waiting. Using video and computer vision data from a stadium concession, we show that these cues, rather than actual queue length alone, drive entry decisions. We estimate models of perceived congestion and find they significantly outperform standard approaches. When perception diverges from reality, classic results on optimal admission policies break down, with welfare differences of up to 45%. This suggests a shift in congestion management. Shaping how queues are seen, for example, through speed, structure, or segmentation, can be more effective than pricing alone. Bio: Gad Allon is the Jeffrey A. Keswin Professor and Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions, and the director of the Management and Technology Program at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in Management Science from Columbia Business School in New York and holds a Bachelor and Master degree from the Israeli Institute of Technology. His research interests include operations management in general, and service operations and operations strategy in particular. Professor Allon has been studying models of information sharing among firms and customers both in service and retail settings, as well as competition models in the service industry. His articles have appeared in leading journals, including Management Science, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and Operations Research. Professor Allon won the 2011 “Wickham Skinner Early-Career Research Award” of the Production and Operations Management Society. He is the Operations Management Department Editor of Management Science and serves on the editorial board of several journals. Gad is an award-winning educator, teaching courses on scaling operations and operations strategy. He has also been an innovative leader in many educational technology initiatives. He is the co-founder of ForClass, a platform that enables professors to drive higher student engagement and accountability in their classrooms. Professor Allon regularly consults firms both on service strategy and operations strategy. Gad writes a weekly newsletter at: https://gadallon.substack.com/